127. Telegram From the Embassy in India to the Department of State1
2592. Subject: Ad Hoc Scientific Committee on Safeguards. Refs: New Delhi 2337;2 State 034618.3
1. Secret–Entire text.
2. The PM received me alone this afternoon to discuss our differences on the terms of reference. He said he had always understood the scope of the committee’s concern to be “non-discriminatory” and that he could never agree to an arrangement based on different treatment for weapons and non-weapons states. In these circumstances he thought the best thing was to let the committee die stillborn.
3. I indicated that I thought that would be acceptable to my government, and suggested that we should agree on a common public explanation that would be minimally damaging. Specifically, I proposed that we emphasize the importance the two countries had attached to Dr. [Page 350] Eklund’s chairmanship as means of insuring that the committee’s work both in fact and appearance not undermine confidence in the IAEA; faced with Dr. Eklund’s inability to assume the chairmanship, the two countries had agreed not to constitute a committee that might have those negative results. The PM thought this was a good solution, and emphasized his desire to avoid playing up our differences.
3. When I asked if the PM would so instruct both his spokesmen and those of MEA, he said he wished to have first Washington’s response to letting the idea of the committee fade away. Please advise ASAP.
4. Comments: (A) Following the Nye-Pickering visit in which the committee’s terms of reference were drawn up,4 I am sure that the team of Indian negotiators understood very well the limited scope we have all along envisioned for the committee. Quite clearly our interpretation, which we thought the Indians shared, was never communicated to the PM. Moreover, I learned today that he had only recently and with displeasure learned that the whole idea had originated with V. Shankar. The PM had thought he was responding to a White House initiative. (B) The PM received me in a very friendly and relaxed fashion with no others present. After we had disposed of this topic, he led me into a long conversation on other subjects (reported septel),5 and closed our meeting by saying again that I should never hesitate to come see him either in his office or home even without advance notice.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D840128–1824. Secret; Immediate; Nodis; Stadis.↩
- Telegram 2337 from New Delhi, February 9, documented Goheen and Schaffer’s February 8–9 negotiations with Shankar, Sethna, and Vellodi over the composition and scope of the proposed ad hoc scientific committee on safeguards. Negotiations stalled on the question of whether military nuclear facilities were to be excluded, because “the Indians would not accept any explicit undertaking either written or oral to exclude such facilities from consideration.” However, the Indian officials agreed to a de facto and unspoken exclusion in the scope of the committee. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P840128–1829)↩
- Telegram 34618 to New Delhi, February 10, authorized the Embassy to move forward with establishing the ad hoc scientific committee on safeguards based on conclusions reached in the negotiations, but only after Desai was informed. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P840128–1827)↩
- See Document 115.↩
- See Document 128.↩